Many commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures lack convenience: they are too expensive, too big, too small, too heavy, ducted, impractical for a particular purpose, or don't exist in the market place for commercial and/or non-commercial uses.
Most commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures are rigidly constructed and are not made to be collapsible. That makes it difficult to store them away when not in use. They also take up valuable storage space when retailers wish to stock inventory in their warehouses. Additionally, their shipping cost can be very high because they take up too much space due to the amount of dead air contained within their opened structure.
Weight:
Additionally, many of the existing enclosures are made of metal which adds considerable weight (compared to this unit which is made of plastic) and makes it impractical if not impossible to easily carry and transport.
Size:
Many different sizes are available for commercially available enclosures for most applications but those that are targeted for the baking and craft industries are too small. It is not possible to fit a standard large cake or product to be air brushed or spray painted.
Materials:
The enclosures used by the baking industry are not made for that purpose. They are not manufactured in a clean environment and may be shipped contaminated. Additionally, they are not constructed with food safe materials. Additionally, those enclosures that are made and marketed for the food industry are not fully enclosed and present a risk for food contamination during their use.
Sealing:
The work chamber in most commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures cannot be sealed, which provides a path for contaminants to enter the work chamber. Some enclosure operations do not require an air flow vacuum at all. When shut off, the current commercially available enclosures do not provide a means of sealing the chamber from air drafts that can bring contaminants into the work chamber (during the paint drying, dehydration, dusting, incubation, color sorting or steaming operations).
Ducting:
Although some enclosures are ductless, many are ducted and cause inconvenience in having to conduct a hose out of a window or a door.
Lighting:
None of the commercially available baking paint spray and fume hood enclosures provide lighting.
Light Intensity Control:
None of the baking commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures provide lighting intensity control.
Remote Operation:
None of the commercially available Air Brushing or Paint spray and fume hood enclosures provide a remote control to control the light intensity.
High End Filters:
Most of the commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures booths that are not made for the baking industry are supplied with a pre-set filter package that includes a HEPA filter. They are designed and constructed specifically for fumes or aerosol paints that contain toxic Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). Some of the dust or paints used by the baking and other industries do not contain toxic materials or chemicals. Thus, the use of standard high filtration for removing toxic VOCs for baking applications unnecessarily adds cost to the consumer.
Contaminant and Carbon Filters:
None of the commercially available paint and fume enclosures made for the craft and baking industries in particular do not provide activated carbon filters which help eliminate or greatly reduce the presence of odors or flammable VOCs or contaminants into the work environment.
Turntable:
None of the commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures offer a turntable (manual or powered) to rotate the part being painted.
Hooks:
This enclosure will provide hooks to hang parts or equipment when no other paint spray or fume enclosures do.
This enclosure will provide Power or USB outlets to provide power to accessories and upgrades.
Power or USB outlets; or other accessories.
Multi Part Construct:
The commercially available enclosures have multiple piece construction which make it hard and time consuming to set up.
Adjustable Vacuum Air Flow:
Most commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures provide a single insufficient air flow suction setting of around of 220 Cubic Feet per Minute (CFM) or more but with no flow volume adjustment.
Heat Drying:
None of the commercially available paint and fume enclosures provide for heat drying and therefore no power switch, no heat intensity control, and no automatic shut off timer.
Humidification:
None of the commercially available paint and fume enclosures provide for an accessory that utilizes a wicking water filter (water soaked) through which air is drawn inside the enclosure to provide higher relative humidity (moisture). This allows the user to work on their cake fondant, paint or clay while it remains moist thereby preventing any surface cracking.
Cooling:
The above process of drawing moisture into the chamber creates through evaporative cooling, a drop-in temperature thereby allowing lower temperatures especially during warm or hot days preventing the work piece from excess softening or melting.
Air Flow Sensor:
Most commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures do not provide an air flow sensor to warn the user when the filters need replacing.
Clean Room:
In most commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures, the fans or blowers are not reversible and therefore, offer no clean room capability.
Drain:
Most commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures provide no liquid drains.
Noise:
Most commercially available paint spray and fume hood enclosures are noisy.
Single Enclosure:
Each industry that offers a paint spray and/or fume hood enclosure of some sort or another provides one for their particular specialty use. That puts a lot of different enclosures in the market place. End users with multiple needs have to purchase many different enclosure products and pay for each separately. Single function enclosures are costly to the end user and the environment. A single enclosure in the market can lack functionality of one or more of the following: paint spray; fume elimination; clean room; product heater; dryer; part long term conditioning and aging; dehydrator; hydrator; cooler; washout for photography; sand/bead blaster; black light (for hydrocarbon detection and inspection); photography backdrop; incubator (egg hatching and plant growing); color matching and sorting (multi light color sorting); color proof table; projection booth for use as a template; screen printer; and cutting.
Therefore, there remains a need in the art for a multi functional ductless folding utility enclosure that can be easily converted for many different applications.